It’s great to finish first, but it’s really really great to not finish last

Today was the final day of the English Premier League season. As was expected there was a lot of excitement at the top of the table. Chelsea needed a victory to possibly finish in first, but could only manage to draw after giving up a late goal to Bolton two minutes into injury time. That meant that with its 2-0 victory over Wigan, Manchester United claimed its 17th Premier League title.

But that’s not what this post is about. See, the great thing about European soccer is that as exciting and consequential as the fight at the top standings is, the competition at the bottom of the league is every bit as exciting with the results meaning just as much if not more. And unlike in American professional leagues, the drama at the lower end of the league has nothing to do with teams tanking games to get higher draft picks. No no no. In Europe, if your record is bad, you have every incentive to win. If you don’t you won’t be around to play next year.

Relegation. I think it’s a wonderful concept. The worst three teams in the every division at the end of the season are demoted to the lower division, and the first three teams are promoted to the higher division. This year Reading, Birmingham, and Derby were the bottom three in the Premier League so next year they will be playing in the Championship instead. Fulham needed a 1-0 victory on the last day of play to avoid relegation and they did so only because of goal difference.

Relegation is no small matter for a club. Aside from the tens of millions of pounds a club will lose in Premier League television contract money and other revenue streams, they will also have a much harder time holding on to its key players and attracting good new players. Relegation is not good for anyone and a club works hard to avoid it.

As a matter of practicality and logistics it is impossible, or at least very very very unlikely, but relegation is a concept that could do wonders for a number of American professional leagues. For a couple reasons, competition at the lower end of American Leagues is de-incentivized. For one, usually the worse your record the better chance you have getting a high draft pick for the next year. So if you are not going to make the playoffs, you might as well finish last. Secondly, because of revenue sharing and other deals, owners of even really bad teams make a lot of money. Don’t get me wrong, I am in favor of revenue sharing, but nonetheless it must be acknowledged that it, to some degree, disassociates the profitability of the team from its success on the field of play; not completely, but to some degree.

If there was some AAA team ready to replace them, I think the Tampa Rays (or whatever the team is now called) might have a less cavalier outlook on finishing at the bottom of the AL east every year. The Texas Rangers and Pittsburgh Pirates might be a little uncomfortable also. Would the Miami Heat really have won only fifteen games this year if there was a chance the Dwayne Wade would have to suit up for a D-League team next year? I doubt it. Pat Riley certainly would not have been taking games off to go scout Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley. Can you imagine if there was a lower division of the NFL? Maybe somehow Roger Goodell works out a deal to acquire the CFL. I would not want to be the one to inform Bill Parcells that he must switch places with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and that he cannot return the dolphins to NFL unless he wins a Grey Cup.

Ah well, if only…